Posted in Death

Cremation

Posted on by tq1695

Embers fade from red to orange
cooling to patched grey – auburn hair in middle age.
Time is almost ready
not quite
after waiting
since midway through the decade before last
it doesn’t mind five more minutes.

A nondescript piece of paper
thumbed and menopausal
the size of business card
which in some ways it is.
House number
street name
postal code
Country. A long way from this.

Amputated from the top of a letter
unfolded with smile
refolded in sigh
for 16 years
outliving two wallets
comfortable with a third.

Precision timing
the undertaker must calibrate that exact point
knowing when the earth is ready to receive
the loved ones to yield.
As gently as possible
fingers lower paper to coals
funeral pyre acceptance.

Morning cannot resist
there is no miracle.
nothing remains.

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Author:

Most of my life has been spent on the bench, occasionally called into the game by extravagance or attenuation. Waiting has turned a loner into a recorder - nondescript and inconsequential, more not noticed than overlooked - the non-vantage point of children not yet considered old enough to understand. Orphaned Islands (Un)poetry is a lifetime of picking anecdotes up and not throwing them away. Stories collected like odds and ends placed in a box in the basement, the garage, the garden shed - uncertain as to what their use might be but knowing that one day there might be one.